Religious Authority Versus Scientific Reasoning
...t, including the sun, revolved around the earth because it was the only planet created by God to be inhabited by life, but Copernicus opposed this idea by criticizing the original idea and stating that the earth revolves around the sun. Conflicting religious authority proved to many lower class citizens that the Church could be incorrect about other views besides religion and the impact of rational thinking began to take it’s toll on society. As time passed, more scientific achievements were accomplished, such as the theory of gravity and other astronomical discoveries, which further conflicted with authority, but an immense development was that of the scientific method. Francis Bacon first proposed the method of inductive reasoning. Bacon developed a plan that reorganized the sciences. His outlook on life was based on his perception of everything around him and the fact that he took notice of it. The inductive method was based on gathering facts and applying them to what you already had hypothesized or knew. In order to follow his method, you had to take what was observed and apply the formal cause to it and not doubt or deceive your observation in the process. This impacted negatively upon religion due to the fact that people could not observe God and therefore could not apply his existence into reality. In contradiction to the inductive method was a methodology based on one’s mind capacity. The mathematician and philosopher known as Rene Descartes inspired the new method of scientific reasoning known as deductive reasoning. Descartes believed that he could only trust his own thoughts and algebra and that what he observed in the universe was only deception. What set this new theory apart from any other presented in this century was that before you could apply it to everything around you, you must prove it to yourself in your mind. Descartes believed that his existence was based on his ability to think and comprehend, but he never obtained the origin of the thought process. For Descartes, a thinking thing is 'a thing which doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, which also imagines and feels.' His work greatly impacted religious authority due to the fact that at some points, he opposed the...